Sociology lecturers and people with slightly too much time on their hands have expressed their deep joy at the first conspiracy theory being pulled out, unscathed, from ‘a deep well of implausibility.’

‘This is great stuff’ declared Geoff Meston, an IT Consultant from Bristol who had mistakenly queued for 48 hours outside his local Apple store for the ‘official launch’ of the first theory. ‘It mirrors the ‘fake moon landing’ conspiracies, but this one has an internal consistency that is all its own; it is – if you like – a ‘classic with a twist’ conspiracy.’

‘First of all I picked up tweets that revealed the government of Chile were ‘planning a big operation in the desert’, something that would ‘take days to set up’. Initially people seemed to be saying they wouldn’t be able to pull it off. They were flying a lot of cameras and hardware in, so there was definitely technical expertise involved, and staging such a high profile stunt would have needed buy-in from the very top.’

‘Another anomaly was the time: I watched the broadcast in the early hours of the morning, but the clock on the screen and the setting sun both showed that the ‘live’ footage was actually shot four hours earlier: a dead giveaway.’

Journalists and news teams continue their round the clock vigil of internet chatrooms for further conspiracies to be exhumed. ‘It’s looking good’ remarked Neil Gummer of Channel 4 news ‘We thought it would be ages until another, totally contradictory theory emerged, blinking, into the media glare. However we have just heard distant rumblings on DavidIke.com that this initial theory was ‘just what they want us to believe’ so it looks like we won’t have to wait much longer.’